Distressing near-death experiences as photographic negatives.
The Journal of near-death studies 1996 DOI: 10.17514/jnds-1996-15-2-p83-114. (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Near-death experience |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that painful near-death experiences can be organized through Greyson and Bush's typology of inverted NDEs, everlasting void experiences, and hellish experiences, with hellish experiences further split into entity-centered and fire-centered types and a possible fourth category of empathic life review. Proposes that rational paradigms for interpreting such experiences fall into supernaturalistic, reductionistic, and one-world types, and that elements of different one-world views might be combined. |
Abstract
This essay presents various interpretative frameworks for pain ful near-death experiences (NDEs).It describes Bruce Greyson and Nancy Evans Bush's three-part typology of inverted NDEs, everlasting void expe riences, and hellish experiences, suggesting a further breakdown of the latter into entity-centered and fire-centered.A potential fourth category is the em pathetic life review.As a religious context for distressing experiences, I pre sent Rudolf Otto's concept of the nonrational mysterium tremendum.The major rational paradigms that have been applied to such experiences can be categorized as the supernaturalistic, the reductionistic, and the one-world types.I give examples of several kinds of one-world views, particularly three Christian mystics of early modern times, and offer suggestions of ways in which elements of different one-world views might be combined.The [D]ove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror... Who then devised the torment?Love.. . .We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," 1952, pp.143-144 O dark dark dark.They all go into the dark,The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant....We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation....